What could be more simple and more complex,
more obvious and more profound than a portrait.
– Charles Baudelaire 

The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and
the eyes mark its intentions.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero

The most difficult thing for me is a portrait.
You have to try to put your camera between the
skin of a person and his shirt.
– Henri Cartier-Bresson

Portraits reveal a desire for human connection;
a desire so strong that people who know they will never see me again
open themselves to the camera,  all in the hope that at the other end
someone will be watching,
someone who will laugh or suffer with them.

A good portrait is one that says something about the person.  
We usually see parts of ourselves in others, so the
good portrait should also say something about the human condition.

A true portrait should today and a hundred years from today, be the
testimony of how this person looked and
what kind of human being he was.
–  Philippe Halsman

Photography and the genre of portraiture have enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship.
From the beginning of depiction, the portrait has invited its audience to recognize the
identity of the subject and then to remember.
– Anthony Bannon

Most of my portraits are not formal situations;
they are found situations. 

There is no single form or style of portraiture.
Portraiture means individualism and as such means diversity,
self-expression, private point of view.
The most successful images seem to be those
which exist on several planes at once …
– Peter Bunnell

As human beings we are fascinated with how we and others look.
Diane Arbus talked about the gap between intention and
effect as revealed in portraiture.

 
People put on make-up and adorn themselves because they want to create an effect and
give a certain impression, but often other people look at them and
say it’s tragic or comical or curious or funny or odd.
Portraiture can be that kind of sharp critique.